The iPlayer served up more television to viewers watching on smartphones and
tablets than on computers for the first time last month, the BBC has
revealed.

Mobile devices accounted for 40pc of the 176 million requests for television programmes in September, versus 33pc on computers.

It represents a watershed in a rapid shift in online viewing habits. A year ago smartphones and tablets accounted for only 25pc of viewing, compared to 47pc on computers. Three years ago only 6pc of requests for programmes came from mobile devices.

The switch will be seen as significant both by the BBC, which recently announced a new strategy that put iPlayer at the centre of its plans, and by the wider sector, which is scrambling to keep up with the migration of away from PCs to mobile devices.

Facebook has piled engineering resources into its mobile apps and advertising business over the last 18 months, for instance, to address investor fears its audience and advertisers were being disconnected by the trend.

The iPlayer is the most popular on demand television service in Britain and viewed as a bellwether for mass market digital media consumption. As well as having declining share of iPlayer viewing, computers are on the wane in absolute terms, even though total usage is rising. Viewers requested 58 million programmes on desktops and laptops in September, compared to 70 million last year.

Taking radio into account, computers are still used more to access iPlayer than smartphone and tablets, but have a falling share and the mobile device figures do not include listening on mobile devices via popular third party radio apps such as TuneIn.

Alongside September’s viewing figures, the BBC announced the iPlayer mobile app for Android, iOS, Windows Mobile and BlackBerry has been downloaded 20 million times.

Victoria Jaye, head of TV content for iPlayer, said the figure marked “a golden age of public service television”.

She said: “[It] cements iPlayer's role as BBC Television's fifth channel, enabling audiences to fit their enjoyment of the full range of BBC programmes around their busy lives.”

Director-general Lord Hall said this month the BBC would “reinvent” the iPlayer, extending availability to 30 days after broadcast and making more programmes available online before broadcast. By 2022 the service will be “the front door to many people to the whole BBC”, he said.

The media analysts Enders estimate that iPlayer currently accounts for only 3pc of total viewing, rising to 7pc among 16 to 34-year-olds.

Explaining the focus on iPlayer in the BBC’s strategy, Lord Hall said: “Almost every teenager today has a mobile and it’s this device they value most, not the radio or the television.”